It's a battle of the best of the West as the Canucks travel to Detroit to take on the Wings in the last regular season matchup between the two conference leaders. The Wings currently lead the season series 2-1, although if you're a Canucks fan, that changes to 1-0-2 (also if you're a Canucks fan, get the frak out of here).
Today was an interesting one in Detroit as there was talk that everyone from Troy Passingham to Helen of Troy was going to back up Jimmy Howard, but Chris Osgood' is still battling a wonky groin and has been put back on LTIR, allowing the Wings to call up Joey MacDonald from Grand Rapids for the gajillionth time this season.
Much like Monday night, there will be a number of unfamiliar faces in the lineup for both teams. For the Canucks, they will be without Mikael "High and Wide" Samuelsson, Manny Malhotra, Tanner Glass and Alex Edler, although they will welcome Kevin Bieksa back to the ice. The Wings are without Johan Franzen, Pavel Datsyuk and Todd Bertuzzi, However, female escorts everywhere will have a lonely 3 hours as Jiri Hudler is supposed to return to the Wings after missing 3 games with the flu.
Welcome our Canadian friends with the typical class we exhibit around here: when you insult them, throw an "eh" on the end of it. The game thread is open.